


His Reason To Live

by orphan_account



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Realization, felicity with ray
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-04
Updated: 2014-11-04
Packaged: 2018-02-24 03:27:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2566565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>~This takes place a few weeks after the first chapter!</p></blockquote>





	1. Morning After Blue

The display in front of Felicity shocked her into a halt. The restaurant had been booked specifically for them, the dining room empty except a waiter that held an expensive-looking bottle of champagne in front of them. There was a small table set extravagantly with candles that smelled wonderfully of vanilla, and flower petals decorating the white tablecloth. Music played faintly, a sweet instrumental piece, that sang with violins. Felicity stared in awe at the scene, mouth gaping at the display and then back at the man at her side.

“I told my assistant subtle romance, but she doesn’t really do anything halfway,” Ray gave a slightly embarrassed grin at her obvious shock, pulling her chair out for her, “Neither do I, for that matter. I figured Italian was good—everyone likes Italian right?”

Felicity tried not flinch as the memory of her last date eating Italian flit through her mind. She would not think of Oliver tonight. Tonight was about the man in front of her. Ray—who was so sweet and kind, she was swept away almost every day. Who made her laugh so hard her sides hurt. Who challenged her intellectually, more than even Barry had. Ray was perfect. And he wanted her.

They talked the entire dinner, and Felicity’s cheeks began to ache wonderfully from her bright smiles. Their food was delicious and Felicity had to physically move away her plate to stop eating, earning a chuckle from Ray.

“I don’t think I’ve eaten that much since… Nope. Correction, I don’t think I’ve eaten that much ever,” Felicity grabbed her champagne and leaned back in her chair, a hand on her stomach, groaning.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had food that good here,” Ray said with a smile, shaking his head, “They must have made it specifically because you’re here.”

Felicity instantly flushed, “Oh stop.”

“I’m not surprised in the slightest. Anybody with eyes would want to show off around you. Hell I do it everyday,” Ray’s eyes crinkled at her, and she smiled back, trying to calm her flush.

“In case I haven’t told you enough tonight, you should know you’re absolutely beautiful, Felicity,” Ray said, reaching across the table for her hand. As Felicity stared at him, his eyes changed from his normally carefree and joking manner, to more serious. The want—the need—she found there engulfed her, sending a tingly feeling through her. His thumb started making soft strokes on her wrist, a spot she had never thought of as sensitive until then. The rough sensation on her soft skin sent goosebumps up her arms, and she felt a sudden longing to see what else he could make her feel. 

He must have seen the change in her eyes, because his tongue swiped across his lips and he stood up from the table, hand pulling her up from her seat. His eyes stared down at her with both happiness and lust, making her knees so weak she almost fell right back down in her chair.

“Let’s get out of here.”

If you asked her later what Ray’s house looked like, she would have absolutely no idea. She was too focused on the small annoying buttons on the front of Ray’s shirt and the sensation of his mouth on hers to pay attention to anything around them. He had made quick work of her long dress with a swipe of his hand down the back zipper and it pooled effortlessly around her feet. She was nearly naked in his entryway, and her fingers kept slipping on his shirt as she struggled. She laughed against his lips at her difficulty, and his smile against her mouth made her heart soar.

“Help me please, I’m not exactly an expert at unbuttoning men’s shirts,” Felicity begged, feeling awkward. 

“Not a problem,” Ray said as he ripped the front of his dress shirt open, sending buttons flying and Felicity into a fit of giggles at his exuberance, essentially squashing any anxiety she felt a moment before at her inexperience.

She had been with a man, sure. Two different men, actually. The first was more of a boy, in her first couple months at MIT. He was as gangly as she was awkward, and they were a right pair, her strange outfits coincided perfectly with his nerdy persona, and when they had sex it was completely cliched in it’s awkwardness. They drifted quickly, with them both focused on their vigorous studies and life at MIT.

The second made her feel cherished and special. They went on multiple dates with no extravagance, but he bought her flowers and ironed his shirt. Compared to her first, he was a prince. They dated a long time before she had sex with him. The next morning he was suddenly gone. The chase was, apparently, over for him.

And then she had waited and pined over Oliver. But in the end, he had pushed her away too.

Felicity knew with Ray it was different. 

It was the way that she wasn’t the one always staring after him. Or how he would call her with a date already planned ahead of time and reservations made. He was responsible. He listened to her opinions, and reveled in her competitive nature. He laughed with her, but not at her. 

Ray liked her because of who she was, not what she could offer. She had waited so long for someone to like her little quirks and enjoy her competitively ambitious side.

Felicity was tired of waiting.

She grabbed the back of Ray’s head, tugging him down to meet her and he let out a surprised noise at her intensity, but instantly returned it. Running his hands down her bare sides, he caressed her thighs before picking her up and wrapping her legs around his waist, carrying her to what she assumed was his bedroom. His kisses made her forget everything and as he touched her and made her body feel more than it had before, all her worries disappeared in a night of complete bliss.

***

Felicity awoke to the sudden sensation of lips on her lower abdomen, crawling up her body until they reached her lips with a soft peck.

“Mmm, I could get used to this kind of alarm clock,” Felicity murmured, eyes still closed as she basked in the sensation. 

“Me too,” the voice that met her ears somehow left Felicity with a strange feeling in her stomach. And not a pleasant one.

She opened her eyes to meet Ray’s dark brown pools, ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut as she smiled up at him.

“How are you today?” Ray asked, smiling brightly, and Felicity pushed away her doubts completely. What was wrong with her? He was perfect.

“I think I’m a bit overused,” Felicity joked jovially back, slipping an arm around his neck and pulling him so he hovered over her body. As she kissed him she felt all her feelings from the night before return in full throttle, and she wrapped her legs around him, earning a groan as she pressed against him.

She was a blur of sensation as his hands traveled over her breasts, teasing, and then down to grab her ass. 

As he continued to touch her body, her eyes closed, and her thoughts fluttered quickly behind her eyes. Of hands, rough and calloused touching her own. Those same hands, caressing her face. Of sharp blue eyes, staring down at her fondly.

Felicity opened her eyes as lips moved away from her mouth, and felt that same sinking feeling as earlier when she met deep brown eyes instead of blue.

Felicity tore away from Ray quickly, much to his surprise, and leapt from the bed.

“I just, I have to go to the bathroom,” she excused lamely to his dumbfounded expression, and practically sprinted into the adjoining bathroom. She placed her hands on the sink and stared at herself in the mirror, panting a bit. Felicity wiped at her eyes angrily as they threatened to spill, and choked back her impending sobs. 

She was supposed to like Ray. He was everything she had ever wanted in a man. Handsome. Sweet. Funny. Successful. Intelligent. Any girl would be lucky to be with him. And she had been with Ray, yes. 

But Felicity realized that despite everything that Ray was supposed to be for her, the only person she could imagine being with was Oliver.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~This takes place a few weeks after the first chapter!

Felicity was on a date with Ray when she got the phone call, and the world disappeared around her. Gone was the man in front of her, the restaurant’s grand opening they had been attending to, the people around her. All she could hear, all she could focus on were the words being spoken to her through the phone. It was Dig’s voice, low and urgent breaking through the laughing of the party around her. It struck her to the bone—just those few words. Her entire world seemed to isolate the sharp pain in her chest as she panicked.

“Oliver was shot…” Dig’s breath hitched, “They think he’s going to die, Felicity.”

Before Felicity had time to think, she was running past Ray and all the guests around her. She was in a floor length red gown, heels, and the finest jews, and was tearing through Starling City like a madman, but it didn’t matter. None of it matter. The only thing that mattered was getting to Oliver before it was too late.

Felicity followed the directions that Dig gave her to find Oliver’s hospital room and bolted through the door, immediately flying past Dig and Roy at the entryway and standing next to the man in the bed.

Oliver was hooked up to so many tubes and wires Felicity was uncertain that they could all actually serve a purpose. His normally tanned skin seemed stark and pale, not a flush in sight. His eye’s were closed simply, like he was in a deep sleep. Blood caked his hairline and a bandage clamped to the side of his face. His sheets were bundled around his waist, revealing a bandage covering almost his entire stomach. It’s slight pink tint of the blood underneath shone in the fluorescent lights and let Felicity know that the bandage was only covering the problem, not fixing it.

Felicity looked down at Oliver, trying to hold back sobs. Memories of their time together came fluttering back in painful succession. Of their first meeting, where she rambled like an idiot about his dead father, but he wasn’t offended in the slightest. Of his ridiculous lies that he fed her, but she somehow still knew that she could trust him. Of when he was in the back of her car, shot, much like he was now, and she finally learned his secret. He and Dig had welcomed her into the team, even though she was reluctant at first. They had made her feel needed and appreciated. Made the foundry feel like home. They were like family to her. She had never had a real family before, and it was the little things that would make her tear up at their simultaneous comfort and unfamiliarity. 

The way Dig would see her curious glance every once in awhile and show her the technique he was doing with his weapon, even if she could hardly hold the thing. The way they would both listen to her ramblings about her day, and act interested even though she was talking about nothing. The way Oliver would brush his hand against her arm or cheek, just to make sure she was still there. Still okay.

Dig had always known about her feelings for Oliver, even when she thought she had done a good job hiding them. When Oliver had disappeared back to the island after the quake and they had thought he was dead, she had finally admitted out loud to Dig what Oliver meant to her. He proved to be a surprisingly good listener, saying nothing as she babbled, but providing an endless supply of tissues. When she had finished, he had simply announced that they would have to find Oliver. And they had.

But when time had finally seemed to be on her and Oliver’s side, and the world seemed to align for one night at a small elegant restaurant with Italian food and good conversation, the universe exploded, quite literally, around them. She almost died. Oliver almost broke because of it. And he decided that it was safer for them to be apart.

So she had finally given Ray a chance. He turned out to be wonderful, and even though Felicity found herself picturing Oliver in his place sometimes, it was happening less often. Maybe, just maybe, she was moving on.

Or so she thought until that phone call from Dig.

She sat next to Oliver’s side for days, but he never made a move. The doctors said they put him into an induced coma; that he would heal better that way. And when, and if, he was ever ready, he would wake up. He went into so many surgeries Felicity lost count. She never left the hospital, with Dig fetching her clothes from her apartment, and Roy with daily deliveries of Big Belly Burger, the three of them sat in Oliver’s dreary room for countless days and nights.

Roy had a chair he had stolen from the lounge outside, and positioned it in front of the TV, watching whatever sports game was on at the time. He had his phone in his hand constantly, and would leave the room every ten minutes to make a call, but the line had been disconnected. Thea never called.

Dig’s chair was shoved in the corner, and he could see the entire room from his seat—Roy, antsy in his chair. Oliver, eerily still in his bed. Felicity, tablet placed on the edge of Oliver’s bed, her head resting next to it as she drifted in and out of sleep, with one hand hovering over the tablet and the other wrapped around Oliver’s. Dig watched the door as many unfamiliar faces passed. Watched as people checked in and out. Noticed as some never had a chance to check out. Prayed that Oliver did.

Felicity was good at breaking up the silences when she was awake. She would babble to Oliver about nothing and everything. She told him about how the company, which they had regained power of right before he was shot, was being cared for by Walter, who had returned to town instantly upon hearing of his condition. She talked of little things that were gossip worthy about the office. She didn’t even know what she was saying half the time, but she needed him to hear.

On the fifth day Ray tried to visit. 

Felicity sent him away. 

He didn’t come back.

On the seventh day the doctors told Roy, Dig, and Felicity that they should go home and get a good night’s sleep. They all refused.

On the tenth day Oliver’s chart deadlined, and they almost lost him. Somehow, someway, they got his heart started again. Felicity though was out of tears by that point, so she held his hand tight when he was back in his room and kissed his cheek tenderly. 

On the fourteenth day Felicity was babbling about how silly football seemed when Dig and Roy decided to go to the cafeteria and get dinner. They invited Felicity, but she waved them off, switching through channels before stopping at one playing baseball.

“I personally like baseball better than football. There seems to be more of a purpose you know? Football is just like trying to hurt the other players, which seems insane because you’re just going to hurt yourself in the process, right? Baseball there’s an obvious objective. You’re not trying to hurt other people. It’s actually fun,” Felicity watched the game uninterestedly for a few minutes before turning back to Oliver. It was one of the first times she had been alone with him in the time in here, and her heart constricted at the thought of it being the last.

“You can’t leave us, okay?” Felicity whispered, running her hands lightly over his hair, “I mean, how am I supposed to handle Dig and Roy without you? Roy’s a mess. I mean without Thea here, he just seems lost. If he lost you too…” Felicity cleared her throat of tears.

“And what about Dig? As much as he won’t admit it, he needs you. You make him stronger. You make him better.”

“Oliver, you can’t leave me, okay? I want to say it’s because the team needs you, or the city needs you, but as selfish as it is, I need you.” Felicity felt the tears she had thought run out leak down her face as she gripped his hand in both of hers.

“You came into my life and made everything better. You gave me a family. You gave me a home. I can never thank you enough for that,” Felicity ran a hand over his rough stubble, comforted by the feeling against her skin.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but i need you to know something,” she breathed shakily, “I love you Oliver. More than anything. Please, I’m begging you, don’t leave me,” Felicity whispered, and laid her head down on his arm, drifting off into sleep.

Felicity wouldn’t realize that those words had awoken something inside Oliver until he said so in his wedding vows two years later. They had called to him from the depths of his unconsciousness, beckoning him to life. Slowly, gradually, he had woken up. That night it was a small twitch of his hand. The next it was a shift in his leg. A few days later his eyes fluttered open just a moment, but Felicity had never seen something so wonderful. He woke up, eventually, to find a woman who loved him more than anything in the world patiently waiting for him. 

Felicity’s words had ignited hope. They made him realize that loving her wasn’t something he should push away. It was his reason to live.


End file.
